So, let me see if I’ve got this straight … Trucks block the streets of Ottawa in February 2022 (Photo: Maksim Sokolov/Creative Commons). The people who vociferously supported the occupation of downtown Ottawa by truckers and others blasting air horns 24/7 and spewing filth on the streets of the nation’s
Continue readingTag: United Conservative Party
Alberta Politics: UCP health minister’s claim of record-breaking nurse recruitment drive is hard to justify
Yesterday’s United Conservative Party claim that Alberta is the beneficiary of a record-breaking drive to recruit nurses from abroad seems divorced from reality. A UCP social media ad attributing a misleading claim to the Globe and Mail (Image: Facebook/Jason Copping). In a UCP news release echoed repeatedly on social media
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Even more stuff Danielle Smith says: Privatize major public hospitals? Sure! Alberta’s premier has a plan
A video clip of Danielle Smith outlining how Alberta could privatize major public hospitals like the Peter Lougheed Centre, the Rockyview General Hospital, and South Health Campus appeared on social media last week. The massive South Health Campus public hospital facility in Calgary – targeted by Alberta’s premier for privatization?
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Unhinged: Danielle Smith says vaccinated Albertans are just like the German voters who elected Hitler
In an unhinged commentary recorded by Danielle Smith on Nov. 10, 2021, the day before Remembrance Day, Alberta’s future premier compared Albertans who got vaccinated against COVID-19 with Germans who voted for Hitler. NDP Opposition Leader and former Alberta premier Rachel Notley called Ms. Smith’s comments “horrifying” (Photo: David J.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Wildfire state of emergency introduces new calculus to Alberta election campaign
Declaration of a provincial state of emergency just 23 days before the spring election introduces a new level of complexity to Alberta’s electoral math. Alberta Opposition Leader Rachel Notley (Photo: Alberta NDP). Alberta is now dealing with electoral calculus, as it were, not just mere arithmetic. With dry conditions, hot
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP’s ‘Alberta is Calling signing bonus’ is mostly fluff, little substance, and likely to stir resentment
The United Conservative Party’s big “economic diversification” announcement yesterday, delivered by Premier Danielle Smith in what looked like a tire-repair shop, sounded like an uninspiring revival of former premier Jason Kenney’s “Alberta is Calling” subway advertising campaign in Toronto last fall. Jason Kenney during his lame “Alberta is Calling” News
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy May Day! Alberta poised for election call today
Today is May 1, the International Day of the Worker and presumably only by coincidence the day on which Alberta Premier Danielle Smith plans to visit Alberta Lieutenant-Governor Salma Lakhani to ask her to call a general election for May 29. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Recent polling
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Criticized for the company she keeps, premier insists she doesn’t know who her friends are
Criticized for the company she keeps, Danielle Smith countered by insisting she doesn’t know who her friends are. Alberta’s premier hobnobs last Wednesday in Calgary with convoy leader James Bauder, his wife Sandra Collins Bauder, and convoyer Harold Jonker (Photo: Facebook/James Bauder). When Alberta’s premier caught flack for posing at
Continue readingAlberta Politics: $#!+ Danielle Smith says, and does: Alberta Premier touts far-right ‘bastions of freedom’ in U.S.; poses with convoy insurrectionists
It’s been more than 25 days since April Fool’s Day and we’re still learning almost daily about $#!+ Danielle Smith says … and does. This is Alberta, where it often feels as if every day is April 1, and by some kind of strange cosmic convergence, it’s Ground Hog Day
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Tales from the Crypt: UCP unearths Stephen Harper whose bloodless video ‘endorsement’ falls somewhere short of inspiring
How do you make a political endorsement without making a political endorsement? Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who was not mentioned in Mr. Harper’s “endorsement” of her political party, which he also didn’t name (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Canada’s former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper has offered us a lesson! Yesterday, Alberta’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP’s Rachel Notley targets radical Take Back Alberta group taking over the United Conservative Party
It’s hard to imagine David Parker, founder and de facto leader of the Take Back Alberta political action committee, was very happy to hear Opposition Leader Rachel Notley signal clearly last week that the NDP considers his group a legitimate target in the election campaign already unofficially under way. Take
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Message to Alberta’s media: Danielle Smith has neither the authority nor the power to restrict you to one question – ignore her decree!
It’s in Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s nature never to admit she’s wrong, so it was no surprise after her announcement Friday that she wouldn’t allow reporters at a government news conference to ask more than one question prompted a storm of criticism, she doubled down yesterday. Some politicians, like Alberta
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The victim of her own repeated blunders, Danielle Smith decrees a limit on reporters’ questions
It looks like Alberta’s going to need a Sam Donaldson in this election campaign. Former ABC White House Correspondent Sam Donaldson in 1995 (Photo: John Matthew Smith via Wikipedia). You know, someone with a voice big enough to be heard over the noise of Alberta’s premier and her United Conservative
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith versus Danielle Smith on public health care: Methinks the premier doth protest too much!
Danielle Smith renounced and denounced Danielle Smith’s health care policy objectives at a United Conservative Party at a press conference yesterday in the Edmonton suburb of Sherwood Park. Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney at a similar stunt in 2019 (Photo: Twitter). The Danielle Smith doing the renouncing is the one
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Premier changes Pastorgate story again, claiming she thought preacher facing charges just wanted to talk politics
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has changed her story again about her controversially congenial telephone conservation with street preacher Artur Pawlowski about the criminal charges against him. Controversial street preacher Artur Pawlowski (Photo: Independence Party of Alberta). This time, using the Saturday morning Your Province, Your Premier call-in radio program provided
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Embarrassed by premier’s telephone tête-à-tête with extremist facing criminal charges, UCP retreats to its safe space: Law ’n’ Order rhetoric
Sounding a mite panicked by the negative public response to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s willingness to bend rules to help political allies in trouble with the law, the United Conservative Party has retreated to its ideological safe space: Law ’n’ Order, with a side of dog-whistles and urban crime stereotypes.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Last week wasn’t a good one for Alberta’s UCP – this week holds the promise of more … snow
They say a week is a long time in politics, but last week must have felt like eternity to the United Conservative Party brain trust. Deputy Premier Kaycee Madu (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Its efforts to make the revelations of that leaked phone call between Premier Danielle Smith and anti-vaxx, pro-Convoy
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If you’re not talking to a Crown prosecutor, it doesn’t count as interference – that’s the UCP’s story, and they’re stickin’ to it!
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith never spoke directly to a Crown Prosecutor when she set out to interfere in the administration of justice on behalf of pandemic public health scofflaws, and nothing else matters. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith with the giant sausage statue in Mundare, Alberta (Photo: Facebook/Danielle Smith). That’s the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP plans to let private medical corporations provide some surgeries without qualified anesthesiologists in the Operating Room
I bet you didn’t know the United Conservative Party Government plans to let private medical corporations operating their own facilities perform surgeries even if the person delivering the anesthesia is not a physician specializing in anesthesiology. Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Alberta political blogger and corporate and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: So what kind of UCP candidates will replace Finance Minister Travis Toews and Environment Minister Sonya Savage?
Friday’s revelation that neither Finance Minister Travis Toews nor Environment Minister Sonya Savage would be running for re-election in the expected May 29 provincial vote quickly gave way to speculation about who, or at least what kind of candidate, would replace them in the short spell remaining till the election
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